Author Archives: Elizabeth

Tossed Green Salad, 2010

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Part of our Memorial Day dinner was this salad, with LOTS of vegetables in it.  You can’t really taste the “secret additions,” but it adds crunch, texture and moisture to a standard tossed green salad.  I learned to add these while in Italy, staying at an Albergo, or hotel, on Lake Maggiore that had a restaurant attached.  Actually I should say the hotel was attached to the restaurant, because the food side of things had been going strong for about 120 years (the hotel had been built only a few years earlier).

So, in a large bowl place:
a varitey salad greens, cut into slices rather than torn
Chinese cabbage, sliced very thin, then cut into 2-3″ strips
1/4 zucchini, grated
chopped tomato

I also like adding:
a handful of pinenuts
a handful of craisins
some croutons

Toss with tongs (or your clean hands) to mix all the ingredients.

Then, over the top, pour anywhere from 3 Tablespoons to 6 Tablespoons olive oil, depending on the size of the salad you are making.  The one above, for 4-6 people, had about 1/4 cup oil drizzled over the top.

Give several shakes of red wine vinegar over the top of that.  Then grind on some salt–6-7 grinds (don’t skimp on this–it interacts with the vinegar to made it really yummy) and then grind on some pepper.

Toss it all again to coat the leaves.

I know we all used to use balsamic vinegar, but unfortunately the balsamic vinegars I can afford are much too strong, so I found the red wine vinegar to be a good substitute.  Now if your budget allows for the $15/bottle balsamics, use that instead.

Fennel Salad with Mint Vinaigrette

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I found this on the Simply Recipes website.  They are in my Google Reader and this recipe popped up a couple of days ago.  This morning, when in the grocery store, I saw some fennel (also known as “anise”) and decided to make this.  It was a great complement to the other items we served.  It’s also EASY, if you use a good quality sharp knife to cut the fennel.  I upped the sugar and lemon juice slightly from the original recipe; changes are below.

Ingredients
1 large fennel bulb (or 2 medium bulbs)
2 teaspoons sugar
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tbsp chopped fresh mint
2 teaspoons minced shallot or onion

Method
Make the vinaigrette. Put the lemon juice, shallot, mustard, salt, sugar and mint in a blender and pulse briefly to combine. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil until it is well combined.

Using a mandoline, shave the fennel into 1/8 inch slices starting from the bottom of the bulb. Don’t worry about coring the fennel bulb, it’s unnecessary. If you don’t have a mandoline, slice the bulb as thin as you can. Chop some of the fennel fronds as well to toss in with the salad.

Toss with the fennel and marinate for at least an hour. Serve this salad either cold or at room temperature.

Serves 4-6.

Confetti Pasta Salad

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I first tasted a variant of this salad on an airplane in the glory days of airline travel, when they served real food with real utensils in-flight.  I was intrigued with the savory-sweet combo of the spices and onion against the corn kernels, and wanted to reproduce this.  It didn’t seem to really provide that perfect combination of flavors, but I couldn’t figure out what I was missing until my sister Christine came to visit: she added a shake or two of cayenne pepper to the pasta salad.  Eureka!  That was it.

Use Lemon Vinaigrette for your dressing and then gently shake the cayenne over the top of the salad, then blend in. Caution–a little cayenne goes a long way.

Salad:
1/2 lb. (1/2 of a box) orzo (a rice-shaped pasta), cooked and drained–you may need to use a wire mesh strainer instead of a colander to drain (it’s tiny!)
1 can black beans (15 oz.), drained & rinsed
1/2 bag bag frozen WHITE tender corn, approx. 16 ounces
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 red onion, finely diced (pieces are about 1/4″ size)–roughly 1/2 to 2/3 cup
fresh cilantro leaves, chopped, to yield about 1/3 cup

Place in large bowl: cooked orzo, beans, corn, pepper, onion and cilantro; pour vinaigrette over the top and stir gently.  As you toss it over the salad, add more olive oil if it looks dry. Season with salt, pepper and a small amount of cayenne, gently fold into salad.  Be cautious: you can always add more cayenne.  Sometimes I’ll just sprinkle that over the finished dish instead.

You can serve with grilled chicken breasts (marinate them also in the vinaigrette before cooking); garnish with lettuce leaf.

If you make it ahead and need to refrigerate it, bring it to room temperature to serve.  Serves 4-6 main dish servings.

For a variation: serve with crumbled mild Feta cheese and halved grape tomatoes.

Avocado-Orange Soup with Citrusy Salsa

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A few weekends ago, Dave and I went up to San Jose to attend a wedding and while there, slipped off to the San Jose Musem of Art to catch the Thiebaud exhibit and lunch at their in-house spot: Café Too!  I chose Avocado and Orange Soup with Tropical Salsa and immediately thought I’d partaken of the manna of the gods with this dish.  Oh my.  So, coming home, I’ve tried to recreate it in some fashion.  I’m still working on it, but here’s my latest incarnation.

Avocado-Orange Soup

2 large ripe avocados; pitted and peeled and cut into chunks
1 c  Freshly squeezed orange juice
1 c  Plain yogurt–I use Greek yogurt as it’s a little thicker
juice of 1/2 of a lime–cut in half, and stick a fork into the pulp, turning and squeezing until you see no more juice
1/4 tsp. Tobasco pepper sauce–about four shakes, I think (that’s what I use)
Salt to taste–this takes more than you think

In food processor, blend avocados and orange juice. Add yogurt and the rest of the ingredients. Blend until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Garnish with orange slices.

When I look at the soup from the restaurant, I see little flecks of green in their soup, which isn’t in mine.  Bits of jalepeno? Flecks of cilantro?  I used chopped cilantro on the first batch of soup (above) and it just wasn’t right.  Leave a comment if you’ve figured it out.

Citrusy Salsa

I use three piece of citrus (of three different types) and it varies from whatever’s in the market.  This week I had a Cara Cara orange (cross between a grapefruit and an orange), but you could also use a blood orange, a tangelo, a mandarin orange or other interesting citrus fruit.  The museum had something unrecognizable in theirs–tomato? soft pomegranite?  Never could figure it out, but this one works just as well, I think.  This salsa is also good on grilled salmon.

3 pieces of citrus fruit, all different
1 red bell pepper, chopped teensy–really teensy pieces!
1 mango, pitted and chopped finely
salt to taste

To prepare the citrus, cut off the top and bottom of the fruit, so it stands squarely on your cutting board.  Then, following the curve of the fruit, remove the outer layer of the rind, cutting every so slightly into the fruit in order to remove the membrane.  Cut down the middle, then into section, chopping each into very small pieces.  Repeat for each piece of citrus.

Mix citrus, pepper, mango in a bowl and salt slightly.  I always think now would be a good time to add some minced cilantro (just a bit) or Italian parsley or even a small jalepeno. with seeds and membranes removed and finely minced.

Ladle the soup in the bowl, then top with a healthy spoonful of Citrusy Salsa.  Pass more salsa as needed.

Anise-Almond Biscotti

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When we went to Drew and Lisa’s wedding in March of 2010 we enjoyed their cookie table, a traditional touch for those from Philadelphia (the groom is from that city).

We fell in love with these cookies, so I looked for a recipe for them.  I ended up combining two: one from the website Epicurious and one from the Cookies & Biscotti cookbook by Williams-Sonoma.

Ingredients
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/3 teaspoon salt
1  and 1/4 cups sugar
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons aniseed, ground or crushed
1 Tablespoon lemon rind (optional)
1 cup whole almonds, toasted, coarsely chopped

Preparation
Crush or grind the anise seed.  Here’s my high-tech version: an old kitchen mallet that has been used for playdoh creations for 20 years and two zip-loc bags.

Toast the almonds, then chop.  And here’s the toasting the almonds business–some do it in a pan on top of the stove, but I’ve burned them too many times.  So I do it under broiler–this also works for when you make Butternut Crunch Toffee at Christmastime.

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

In mixer, mix sugar, melted butter, 3 eggs, vanilla extract, lemon rind and ground aniseed. In another bowl, sift (or stir together) flour, baking powder and salt into medium bowl.  Add flour mixture to egg mixture and stir on low speed, scraping when needed until well blended. (Yes, I know I did it backwards–I fixed it for you.) Mix in almonds.

Glop half of the dough onto the parchment-lined cookie sheet.  Dough is kind of gooey–so I used my spatula to shape each dough half into 13 1/2-inch-long, 2 1/2-inch-wide log. Mine got a little wide, so the final biscotti were a little flat.  Remember that, when you shape them.  Space the logs 2-3 inches apart.

Bake logs until golden brown (logs will spread), about 30 minutes. They should be firm to the touch. Cool logs completely on sheet on rack, about 20 minutes. I dragged mine over onto a baking rack by using the edge of the paper, and tilting the cookie sheet a little bit.  Don’t turn off the oven!

Transfer logs to work surface; discard parchment paper. Using serrated knife, cut logs on diagonal into 1/2-inch-wide slices.  I used to lay them down, like those in the above photo, but now I just stand them up:

biscotti

If you do it this way, you don’t have to turn them over, and you can get it all on one baking sheet.  Bake 10-14 minutes.

Transfer to rack and cool. These can be prepared 1 week ahead of your Big Party. Store in airtight container at room temperature, that is if they last that long.  These have a melt in your mouth crispness that are typical of homemade biscotti.

I’ll never go back to store-bought again.

Note: One interesting thing about the Epicurious website is the community, and their many comments.  From those, I gleaned that some have changed this by adding 1 Tbs. orange zest, cranberries, chocolate.  Some say okay not to crush the seeds. Others say to substitute 1 tsp. anise extract.

Asparagus Belgique

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This Easter I had a desire for simple supper on Easter Sunday, that would be followed by a more traditional meal the next day when my husband returned from his traveling. I had picked up some fresh asparagus at the store–only the green variety was stocked, but the white is also delicious–and decided that this would be just the ticket.  One year when traveling in Belgium, a friend took us to her country club where white asparagus was in season.  It was served simply, with crumbled hard-boiled egg and a light vinaigrette over the top, served with a side of greens and a garnish of lemons and tomato wedges.  I hoped to recreate that.

Ingredients:

asparagus spears, white or green, approximately 3/4 pound (one bundle)
2 hard-boiled eggs
a good quality vinaigrette if store bought, or use Lemon Vinaigrette if you have time to make it

Wash the spears, then snap them near the bottoms to remove the woody part.  Place them in a pan with about 1/4 to 1/2″ of water, and cover.  Steam them, shaking occasionally.  Don’t let them get too done–check by inserting a knife tip in the lower portion and when it slides out easily, it’s done.  Turn off the heat and prop the lid slightly so the spears don’t discolor.

This should be a good way to use up those dyed Easter eggs, but mine are just plain.  Peel the eggs, then cut them into ribbons by slicing first one way then the other in an egg slicer.  In the photo from Belgium, the eggs are crumbled, but this way will do fine.

Photo is slightly out of focus, I know, but I was hungry and in a hurry.  I think Brianna’s French Vinaigrette is a good substitute for the homemade vinaigrette if you like.

You know what to do from here.  Lay the asparagus onto your plate, scoop out some of the egg, then drizzle with the vinaigrette and enjoy!

Carrots and Snap Peas

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This is my go-to recipe in springtime when I need a quick but delicious vegetable side dish.  First printed in Bon Appetit last year, I made my own changes to it which I present below.  Below  I show it with Lamb with Chimichurri Sauce.

Notice how I never say the word “veggies.”  It’s the equivalent of fingernails on the chalkboard for me–a real spine-grabber of an irritant.  (I just realized how dated the image of “fingernails on the chalkboard” is since most people now only encounter plastic whiteboards on the walls of their classrooms.  Oh well–that cliche stands.)

At the grocery store, select three long, slender carrots.  Three makes enough for the two of us, so adjust your quantites accordingly.

Buy a bag of snap peas from the produce department.  Ours are about 8 ounces per package, roughly.

Peel the carrots, then cut into “nickel” slices.

Dump them into a pot of boiling salted water and set the timer for 2 (two) minutes.

When the timer goes off, dump in the snap peas and set the timer for 3 (three) minutes.

When that timer goes off, scoop them from the boiling water and put into an ice bath to stop the cooking.  Drain the water as you will use the hot pot in the next step.  (You could also drain the vegetables into a colander and then put them into the ice bath, but work quickly.)

In the hot pot, melt 1 tablespoon of real butter.  Meanwhile, drain the vegetables, and pat dry if desired (I don’t.)  Add the vegetables to the butter along with 1 tablespoon of snipped fresh mint and 1 tablespoon of snipped fresh tarragon leaves.  Toss with a bit of salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Lamb Chops with Mint Chimichurri

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I had two Easters this year.  One was quiet by choice: a day of reflection and quiet, without family or friends (my husband was traveling).  I ate a simple meal of Asparagus Belgique and spent it recharging my batteries.  But the other Easter happened the day after the holiday, when my husband was home and we had our celebratory meal, complete with chocolate bunnies for dessert.

I wanted an easy meal that could be cooked up quickly, yet one that incorporated some traditional Easter ingredients.  I found this online on Epicurious, a recipe from Gourment Magazine, November 2009 by Paul Grimes.  They write: “Here, the sunny warmth of mint escapes the sweet-jelly cliché to find new expression in the thick Argentinean herb sauce called chimichurri. Its bright acidity cuts the lush richness of lamb shoulder chops.”  Okay, that’s food writing for you.  But I loved the sauce, cutting run-away mint sprigs from my garden to use.  I made a couple of changes to the original recipe which are reflected below in the process.  I served it with fingerling potatoes and a mix of Carrots and Snap Peas, also with some mint from my garden.

Yield: Makes 4 servings

Active Time: 10 min
Total Time: 20 min

Ingredients for lamb chops:

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
4 (1-inch-thick) lamb shoulder chops

Ingredients for mint chimichurri:

1 to 2 garlic cloves
2 cups flat-leaf parsley including trimmed stems (sometimes called Italian parsley)
2 cups mint including trimmed stems
1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Preparation

Preheat broiler.

Stir together cinnamon and 1 and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a bowl, then rub over chops. Broil in a 4-sided sheet pan 3 to 4 inches from heat, turning once, 8 to 10 minutes total for medium-rare.

Note: At first I didn’t understand this direction, but then realized they just didn’t want you to put it on a rack.  So I sprayed the bottom of the broiler pan with non-stick spray goo and broiled them in there.  I don’t like too rare of meat–just medium to medium rare, so I cooked them a little longer, perhaps 6 minutes each side, for a total of 12 minutes.

Meanwhile, make chimichurri:

With motor running, drop garlic into food processor and finely chop. Add remaining sauce ingredients and 1/2 teaspoon salt and pulse until herbs are finely chopped. Transfer to a bowl.

Serve chops drizzled with a little chimichurri and serve peas and remaining chimichurri on the side.  I liked it on the potatoes, as sometimes fingerlings can be a little dry, I think.

Chicken Roulades with Mustard Sauce

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I opened the Williams-Sonoma Cookbook again, as it was my husband’s birthday.  As I mentioned before, the celebrations of lots of noise and gifts and crazy fun have ebbed, and have been replaced with a quieter dinner on fine china.  This is a direct result of our nest emptying out.  While I miss (always) the happy parties with lots going on, I think this new tradition works well for us as well–challenging me as a cook to find new recipes.

This is a simple rolled-up chicken breast with a twist: no cheese and ham on the inside.  Instead chopped basil and salt and pepper provide the flavor, augmented by a yogurt mustard sauce.  Sometimes I think I’d like to write a recipe like it happens in my house. . . you know, when it says to pound the chicken fillets to a 3/8 thickness and you think you didn’t yet buy the food mallet, and should you try the one in the garage that you use to pound the paint cans closed?  Instead you rummage through the gadget drawer and find the potato ricer–it’s the right shape and the right heft and it pounds the breasts into fillets nicely.  Or when you go outside to snip the chives from the front flowerbed and you find the 15-year old patch has been weeded to within an inch of its life by the last set of garden workers, but (thankfully) you still find enough to use?  That’s how it happens over here.

Ingredients:
8 ounces plain low-fat yogurt, divided (I used Greek yogurt)
1 1/2 Tbls. Dijon mustard, divided
2 teaspoons chopped fresh chives
2 Tbsp. melted butter
2-4 Tbsp. chopped fresh basil (I used a little more)
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, each about 6 oz each
salt and freshly-ground pepper
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs (I use Contadina Italian)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Method:
Pound the chicken breast to 3/8-inch thickness.  I like to lay down two pieces of wax paper, lay the chicken breast on that, then cover with a layer of plastic wrap.  Pound, kind of mashing it this way and that, until it’s uniformly thinner.  Slide your hand in between the two sheets of wax paper, and flip the chicken and its plastic wrap over, peel off the wax paper and replace on the first piece, then repeat with other three breasts.  At the end, you’ll have 4 chicken flattened chicken breasts on their own piece of plastic wrap.

With the divided mustard and yogurt:
1) combine 1/2 cup of yogurt and 1 Tbs. mustard in one bowl, and add in the chopped chives.  This is the sauce. Set aside to come to room temperature while you keep working.
2) combine 1/2 cup of yogurt and 1/2 Tbs. mustard in another small bowl.  This is the coating.

Preheat oven to 400F.  Grease a baking sheet, then cover with a piece of parchment paper. (If you don’t have parchment paper, try to use a non-stick sheet.  If you don’t have that, prepare to scrub your pan at the end.)

In a shallow dish, combine the bread crumbs and the grated cheese. Place the yogurt/mustard coating in another small dish.

Sprinkle about 1 Tbls. (or less) chopped basil lengthwise down the pounded chicken breast; sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Fold in the short ends of the breast about 1/2-inch.  Starting at a long side, roll up the breast, enclosing the basil.  Repeat with remaining breasts.

The recipe says to roll each chicken breast in the yogurt/mustard coating, then roll it in the crumb/cheese coating and place it on the prepared baking sheet.  I found more success in placing the rolled chicken on a plate, smoothing some sauce on it, then sprinkling the crumb mixture over this, all the while making sure the thing didn’t unroll or slip out of my hands.  I then placed it on the prepared sheet.  (The baked rolls are above.)

Drizzle the rolls with the melted butter, then bake until the coating is golden brown and the chicken shows no sign of pink when cut in the center, about 25 to 30 minutes.  Serve hot, with a dollop of the sauce on the side.

This was also good four days later, when we had it for leftovers after a weekend away and I didn’t want to cook.